For love of wine, I whine of love
For hate of bear, I bare my hate
though I dare not give a shove
to the twisted monster that is fate
I wield the most gruesome iron rod
and beat away the thought of God
For love of profits, I proffer love
For hate of him, I sing a hymn
though I dare not dream or speak of
the saintly sin of eternal whim
I lay down the beauty of the feathered crook
in hopes of finding some truer book
Alas, such philosophy as that
lays curled into his tail upon my mat.
I do not shake my fist, or roll my eyes
I do not scream or whisper loudly
as I bang my elbows on my thighs
and swear in perfect meter proudly
I do not present a digit straightly
cast callous dispersions up the street
I only try to behave so stately
that even a nun might find me meet
So if my words come out as curses
or offend your senseless sensibilities
I’ll take a moment to craft some verses
accounting for your instabilities
Alas, It only takes a moment for me to swear
that you’re too much a fool me to bear
This poem is not concrete.
Every word of this poem
is simply a word – a string –
of letters ascribed to phonemes
in turn assigned meaning.
This poem is purely abstract
it only means something –
generic.
This poem was designed by
my muse, Ethyl (who has pendulous breasts
and eats far too many bananas)
to make the point that nothing
is really worth writing about.
This poem does not float on water
it soaks it up
then sinks.
This poem is not a hair care product
and if misused as such can lead to serious dandruff.
This awful poem offers no alliteration at all.
This poem has no actual quality
besides verbosity and may be ignored
completely.
This poem is not about the soul, philosophy,
love, charity, hope, faith or happiness,
except in as much as it speaks to you
directly without the explicit written consent of the poet.
This poem was half-stolen from my friend Patrick
who happened to drop it in a puddle
and leave it out to dry on the picnic table
by the old ramshackled garage we never used to play in.
This poem is unromantic, unrepentant, unredeeming
and unremedial.
This poem does not address the problem of the smurfs,
neither their promiscuity, their blue skin,
their severe song-impediments, nor their penchant
for doing mushrooms.
This poem is best served with sangria
by the water’s edge, pen in hand
whilst listening to waves.
This poem is a dish.
This poem is not a dish, I lied.
This poem is a lie.
This poem is the absolute truth.
Ethyl says this poem is the absolute truth.
No one can own the truth, and every individual’s perspective is their own subjective truth. Therefore, this poem is only the truth to Ethyl.
Ethyl is my muse – her truth is my truth.
This poem is my truth.
This is a lie, words are neither true nor false, they are constructs of ideas
which may or may not be true.
This poem floats on air.
Not like a cloud, like breaths.
Exhaled with passion.
As many times as it takes
to let them live.
They still die.
This poem can carry up to 11lbs of sand
but only in the metric system
where that means 5 kilograms.
This poem is about time.
Time exists only as a function of space.
This poem takes up no space.
This poem is therefore timeless.
This poem does not care for cheese.
Even blue cheese.
Served with peach
and pork tenderloin.
This poem is really about bacon
which makes it better.
This poem proves that I am a pig,
but does not explain how.
Oink.
If by harlot you mean a bourbon swigging Thai ladyboy just in to the big city after years tending his father’s soybean crop, then yes, yes, she is a harlot.
But you don’t mean that, do you? You don’t mean much at all. You’re just watching. You are just sitting there eating your squid, watching a bus drive past with a giant ad for some sumo wrestler.
Our ladyboy friend is standing nearly-dressed in something akin to spandex. She looks at the sky and knows It’s about to rain. It’s about to rain, and you watch her for another second, hoping something will slip and prove your pointless point. She’s gone after a garbage truck drives by. You don’t see where she went.
Now you see a fat girl say, “toodles” to her mule-faced anyone as you push a sprig of parsley around your plate. He is dressed in filthy clothes and has just enough teeth to give the effect of silent braying.
She’s so fucking fat. He’s going to go on a bender, you can almost smell the alcohol and crack on his breath. You can see the glint in his eye. He will, steal cash from the tin over his mother’s fridge. He’ll be so high that maple syrup will be good enough for a meal.
The fat girl has gotten on a bus. He smiles as it pulls away.
You finish the last of your food and wonder if it is time for you to step out from the audience, and up to the platform. Instead you order another bourbon, perhaps it can lance, the soul-wound, and save you?
You slam it down, and feel the joy as it subtracts enough braincells to make the world a considerable deal less sticky. Now you are ready for the valley of the shadow of dish. The after-dinner nonsense of a man walking home. Becoming part of a world he only watches.
It is a thousand steps from the hole in the wall to the 8th floor of the building where he feigns a life. He can not think through the bourbon, so he feels pretty good. Pretty good.
She lives across the street.
Yes, she is a harlot. Yes, she hates you. Yes, you will find your binoculars and agonize as she yelps in the nearness of orgasmic bliss, while you masturbate in dark room full of molk and nothing more.
The fat girl walks by, looks up, and sees you with your binoculars. For a moment, she hates you too.
She shakes her head, and walks away, sad for you. Wiggling and jiggling and knowing you watch because that is your world.
The harlot lets out her secret, and another customer is happier than he ever imagined.
The ground approaches.
The bourbon is wearing off.
Adrenaline is like that.
A few minutes later a thin young cop with a crooked badge asks everyone he can find. Why?
There is a chorus of corn,
blue and thought of
only on bad days
when the neighbor’s techno is playing too loudly.
This is why I am laying
by the little pond covered in algae foam
trying to render a deft little poem
twelve dark lines about the precise moment
I turned into this god-awful, impulsive, cute, bastard
verse trying to prove to my farmer father,
that I can deliver.
I can come through
I can be
what he needs me to be
when he needs me.
He doesn’t believe that.
He is collecting bushels of long ears of corn.
He is glancing at me.
He is glancing at the foam on the pond.
He is kicking the root of the old oak tree where the swing was
that he pushed me on
when i was small.
He is unaware that i am pondering the word “oxidize”
as it relates to me
and him.
Later that evening, I tell him,
“The corn’s delicious Pa”
He rolls his eyes
and heads out to the porch to drink his lemonade
and look at the cornflowers
growing blue.
by the line, she watched him
writing. writing and writing
but never finishing
anything.
He wrote three lines to a 5 lines poem
and then, the inspiration was gone.
He wrote three chapters to his best selling novel
before he before being stretched too thin
before he began realize his idea was terrible,
or a possibly that there were leprechauns waiting beside the door
to come in and steal this monsterpiece when it was finished
or likely, it should be written in ancient latin
but he wasn’t sure about the rules with the whole ‘i’ and ‘j’ thing.
She waits quite a while
but eventually she has to ask
Should you struggle, darling, ,or let it go.
He looks at her for the barest stub of a minute,
sighs, kisses her, and write
most of a sonnet for her.
It has to be enough, he hopes
she nods
it has to be
enough.
I am thinking of submitting something to this journal. It looks kind of interesting.
Printer’s Devil Review (ISSN 2160-2948) is an independent, open access journal of literary and visual art. We provide emerging writers and artists with access to publication and inquisitive readers with new voices and visions.
We’re currently seeking submissions of fiction (2,000 to 9,000 words), poetry, nonfiction, and visual art. Our reading period for Fall 2011 began May 1 and ends August 1.
You can find full guidelines for each section and access our online submission system at
http://pdrjournal.org/submit
a poem is a tool to weed out the fools
a rod to unspoil the kid
a poem is a road without any rules
an excuse for all that we did
a poem is a monkey rabid and fat
a beast and a moon and a scream
a poem is a path full of junkies and wrath
a statement beginning a dream
a poem scares the assholes away
but only a bit in the heat of the sun
a poem is a poem is a poem they say
but I say a poem is a gun
a poem is a tool to break small minds
a staff to lean on and cry
a poem is a tight rope without any signs
of a net as we sit here and sigh
Alexander’s is gone
though he did nothing wrong
and Caldor took off to my memory
My life just goes on
half price on the song
still no discounts for family
You can drum on the table
through every sad fable
you can drum on the hill if you will
but the blues beat on
yesterday’s gone
every day we get a little less able
Alexander’s produce
a part of my youth
Caldor for socks and new jammies
Now we play fast and loose
with every sad truth
Until the past is sweeter than candies
You can drum on the beat
through some fat kid’s track meet
You can drum on the hil if you will
but the blues beat on
yesterday’s gone
every day our mind’s less complete
Alexander’s meat and
the way they would greet, sand
in the shoes of old ladies
Caldor forgotten
but never the spot and
cracks in the pavement with daisies
You can drum on my head
yeah our youth is dead
you can drum on the hill if you will
but the blues beat on
yesterday’s gone
Sorry I forget when you once said
you once said
you once said
Stephan I love you
you once said
you can drum on the hill
I love you still
stephan I love you you once said.
suppose the sun, an idol
the moon a token of despair
the light of gold and silver
writes love upon her hair
suppose the star, a sentence
the space between a dream
the darkness that enfolds us
becomes the poem amidst the gleam
suppose the man, a Godling
the boy, a trophied soul
the shadows dance inside him
as the both become the whole
suppose the sun, an idol
the moon a loss of thought
the light and dark become them
until all time’s forgot